The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-03
DEPENDS FIELDING.

following letter written by Andrew Lang in reply to a letter received from Mrs. Goodhart:
 DEAR MADAME Many thanks for the New York paper you have kindly sent me, with the statistics of book buying in the upper Mississippi val ley. I am interested in those particu- lars which tell one 80 much about the taste of community. So the Rev. E. F. Roe is your favorite novelist there; thousand of his books are sold for every two copies of the works of Henry Fielding? This appears to me to speak but oddly for taste in the upper Mississippi valley. On Mir. Roe's works 1 have no criticism to pass, for this is letter on literature, such as you good -naturedly asked me to write. But I do think your neigh bors lose a good deal by neglecting Henry Fielding. You will tell me he is coarse (which I cannot deny); you will remind me of what Dr. Johnson said, rebuking Miss Hannah More. q never saw Johnson really angry with me but once," writes that sainted maiden lady. II alluded to some witty passage in rom Jones' He replied, I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious book. am sorry to hear you have read it a confession which no modest lady should ever make" You remind me of this, and that Johnson was no prude, and that his age was tolerant. You add that the literary taste of the upper Mississippi valley is much more pure than the waters of her majestic river, and that you only knew who the two culprits were that bought books of Fielding's.
 Ah, Madame, how shall I answer you? Remember that if you have Johnson on your side, on mine l have Miss More, hsrself character purer than "the consecrated snow that lies on Dian's lap" Again, we cannot be- lieve that Johnson was fair to Field ing, who had made his friend, the author of "Pamela," very uncomforta- ble by his jests. Johnson owned that he read all "Amelia" at one sitting. Could so worthy man have been so absorbed by an unworthy book? Once more, I am not recommending Field ing to boys and girls. "Tom Jones" was one of the works that Lydia Lan- guish hid under the sofa; even Miss Languish did not care to be caught with that humorous foundling.
 "Fielding was the last of our writers who drew man." Mr. Thackeray said, "and he certainly did not study from draped model"
 For these reasons, and because his language is often unpublished, and be- cause his morality Chat he is always preaching) is not for "those that eddy round and round," do not desire to see Fielding popular among Miss All cott's readers. But no man who cares for books can neglect him, and many women are quite manly enough, have good sense and good taste enough, to benefit by "Amelia" by much of "Tom Jones'"
 No man ever respected your sex more than Henry Fielding.
 Can you find among our genteel writers of this age figure more beau tiful, tender, devoted and in all good ways womanly than Sophia Weste,W's "Yes," you will say; "but the man must have been brute who could give her to Tom Jones'" to "that fell low who sold himself" as Colonel NeWcome said. "There you have mo at an avail," in the language of the old romancers. There we touch the cen- ter of Fielding's morality, a subject i'll to discuss, morality not for everyday preaching. Fielding distinctly takes himself for moralist. He breaches as continually as Thackeray. And his moral is this: "Let man be kind, generous, charitable, tolerant, brave, honest-and we may pardon him vices of young blood and the stains of ad- venturous living"
 It is true that Fielding's books can- not be prudently placed in Sunday school library, not because they are unworthy of such place, but because they are intended for men and women rather than for children. There are many books of much more moral pre- tense which are in truth much more immoral than "Tom Jones'" There are many allegories which are more sug- gestive and many poems which con- tain more applied passion-if we may use such phrase and yet have none of the keen moral satire of Field ing's most popular work. People who cry out against "Tom Jones" read the daily newspapers. What more needs be said of their horror stricken hy- pocrisy.
 Conventional Forgiveness.